This invention relates to the field of rocket launching and mallaunch measuring. When hot gas is used to spin-up rockets during launch, a significant amount of smoke engulfs the muzzle. The smoke interferes with the standard optical lever technique of measuring mallaunch. This is the most critical phase of flight, i.e., defining the mallaunch rate and aim axis as the rocket exits the launcher. Sometimes, the trajectory coverage is obliterated for the first 10-15 feet of travel. A camera which is positioned downrange and off-line is sighted towards the rocket. The rocket ogive has an optical flat which has been aligned normal to the spin axis. The camera is focused on a target matrix, latin square, which has also been positioned downrange and off-line by reflection from the optical flat. During launch, the camera records photographic images of the centroid on the latin square. Data reduction efforts from the sequential pictures consume approxmately 40 man hours.